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17 December 2021
#AntarcticLog: To Antarctica and beyond!
An immigrant to England from India, Prem grew up among a multicultural group of friends, and experienced culture shock as he rose through the ranks of science. His organization works to ease this shock as well as to increase the numbers of minority folks in his field and in the field, to reduce the problem — and enrich science.
10 December 2021
#AntarcticLog: Introducing I Was a Kid!
There’s something truly thrilling happening in the sciences — an effort to increase diversity and inclusion among the ranks. Across our research institutions I see a new emphasis on supporting all, and inspiring more to target science for their own careers. Because I write and draw so much for young people, that’s where I’ve put my energy for the last year and a half, and now I’m ready to share it.
29 November 2021
#AntarcticLog: Happy Antarctica Day!
#AntarcticLog is a series of comics by Karen Romano Young. You can find the originals here. Still full from Thanksgiving? Then maybe you’ll be able to resist a continuation of the cake theme I began last week with my fruitcake comics from the JOIDES Resolution’s expedition to the Amundsen Sea, into which the Thwaites and Pine Island Glaciers are both flowing faster and faster… Pause. Take a deep breath. Time for cake. …
19 November 2021
#AntarcticLog: Fruitcakes in Antarctica
At times I have the excellent opportunity to go into the field with scientists and report out through the lens of #AntarcticLog comics. Here’s a sampling, ready for the holidays. Perhaps, like me, you are thankful for fruitcake? This one time when I went to Antarctica aboard the drill ship JOIDES Resolution, my children’s author/poet/photographer/baker friend Leslie Bulion sent me with a fruitcake.
5 November 2021
#AntarcticLog: Happy Halloween!
I’ll make no bones about it: I love Halloween. There’s something freeing about masks (even in pandemic times), costumes (this year my costume is a raccoon), and decorations involving our deepest, darkest fears and nightmarish stories.
22 October 2021
#AntarcticLog: Amal, Shackleton, & Nansen
Last week I posted my 200th #AntarcticLog science comic, about the 200 million people that the World Bank estimates will have to move because of the effects of climate change. That present concern is well represented by the journey of Little Amal, a giant puppet of a Syrian refugee girl who is currently on a march of her own.
15 October 2021
#AntarcticLog: 200 million displaced by climate change
It’s a week to celebrate for me: #AntarcticLog #200 just posted. Here it is. To acknowledge the moment, I looked for a topic that would reflect that number: 200. And what I came up with was sobering: the World Bank’s assessment of the number of humans due to be displaced by climate change. (And that’s just the humans.)
4 October 2021
Not-so-plain written: Can we infuse science writing with creative literacy?
Most information transmission among scientists comes in the form of written publications, and a science paper’s clout is too often granted through its tenacious use of a lexicon only understood by other experts in the field. Put this paper in front of a less-than-expert (me), and I’m left picking through sentences word by word trying my darndest to glean some sort of meaning out of it all. It’s not only exhausting, but frankly, it’s pretty boring.
1 October 2021
#AntarcticLog: Visualizing climate change
At the Bigelow Laboratory in East Boothbay, Maine, the walls are made of glass. It facilitates communication, not just because it’s transparent, but because it gives the scientists something to draw on. Did you realize that scientists are dedicated doodlers? They embrace visual imagery to convey their processes and their findings. Case in point: Stephanie Peart’s demonstration of cloud formation, in this #AntarcticLog comic:
17 September 2021
#AntarcticLog: The importance of stories
By now I shouldn’t be surprised — just grateful — at the way certain stories have broad appeal. I’m beginning to learn to trust myself — that stories and images that appeal to me will affect others too. Maybe not the same way as they affect me, but in the way of individual people wherever they are. For example, this one, featuring Mother Earth.
The Plainspoken Scientist is the science communication blog of AGU’s Sharing Science program. With this blog, we wish to showcase creative and effective science communication via multiple mediums and modes.
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